rick pitino

The picture above was of Jessica Dorrell, a University of Arkansas athletics department employee. and her fiance Josh Morgan. Morgan is the director of swimming and diving operations at the University of Arkansas. That wedding (planning) was crashed this past week when Dorrell end-up on the back of a hog driven by Arkansas football coach Boddy Petrino.

Petrino later admitted to a ”previous inappropriate relationship” with Dorrell. Maybe people in the south don’t inbreed — that’s ridiculousness. But it appears people within the University of Arkansas keep it in the family.

I took a step back from the funny parts of the Petrino story this weekend. In the end, the question becomes, will Petrino be Arkansas’ head football coach this coming fall?

I believe the answer will be a resounding ‘no’. However, that doesn’t mean I agree with it.

If Petrino was unfaithful to his wife, is that in itself a fireable offense?

This is exactly what Boston needs more of. In fact, remember some of the specifics of that infamous Rick Pitino quote:

I wish we had $90 million under the salary cap. I wish we could buy the world. We can’t; the only thing we can do is work hard, and all the negativity that’s in this town sucks. I’ve been around when Jim Rice was booed. I’ve been around when Yastrzemski was booed. And it stinks. It makes the greatest town, greatest city in the world, lousy. The only thing that will turn this around is being upbeat and positive like we are in that locker room… and if you think I’m going to succumb to negativity, you’re wrong.

First, the salary cap. Maybe Pitino was right, but that defense doesn’t work over at Fenway. There isn’t a cap in baseball. Boston fans are now relegated to rooting for a bunch of overpaid, under-performing Sox players. That fact alone makes it difficult to remain positive. A team with a near $200M payroll shouldn’t have to put Kyle Weiland on the mound in the midst of a pennant race. Second, it’s the Red Sox, it’s Boston, it shouldn’t be all positive. Some level of negativity is what fueled Boston as a baseball town for a century. We need more of it right about now.

We are starting to hear from some of the prominent college basketball coaches in regards to the new “super-conference model”. The whole idea of these super conferences is centered around football. While often times football and basketball walk in lockstep, being the two revenue producing collegiate sports, this time hoops programs are going to be onlookers just like the other sports.

Yesterday Rick Pitino decided to take to his website to demonstrate his opinion on this matter. In Pitino’s blog post, titled “RED ALERT!!!”, Rick decided to take a shot at one of the schools which jumped from the Big East to the ACC in 2004:

Who could imagine Syracuse, a charter member leaving the BIG EAST? Didn’t they check Boston College’s championship totals since leaving the BIG EAST — one, in soccer in 2005.

It sounds like Pitino doesn’t want to end up back in Conference USA. He is clearly not happy that the Big East basketball juggernaut is now at risk. Losing BC was nothing, that’s not the target of Pitino’s anger. Pitino hates to see a good situation ruined, and losing ‘Cuse and Pitt is step one of a disaster scenario.

Today we have Jim Boeheim taking his thoughts to the media. When asked about the prospect of moving the ACC tournament to Madison Square Garden, Coach Boeheim had this to say: